1. Technical Field
This invention is generally related to games of skill and chance, and in particular to distributing playing cards for card games.
2. Description of the Related Art
Card games are a well-known form of recreation and entertainment. Games are typically played with one or more decks of cards, where each deck typically includes 52 cards. Each deck of cards will typically include four suits of cards, including: hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades, each suit including fourteen cards having rank: 2-10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. Card games may, or may not, include wagering based on the game's outcome.
Decks of playing cards must be periodically shuffled to prevent the same card hands from continually reappearing. Shuffling may take place after every card in the deck or decks has been dealt, for example after several hands have been played. Shuffling may also interfere with, and even prevent, a player from gaining an unfair advantage over the house or other players by counting cards. Numerous card counting systems are known, and typically rely on a player keeping a mental count of some or all of the cards which have been played. For example, in the game of twenty-one or “blackjack” it is beneficial to determine when all cards with a rank of 5 have been dealt (i.e., fives strategy). Tens strategy is another card counting method useful in the game of twenty-one. In tens strategy, the player increments a count each time a card having a value of 10 appears, and decrements the count when card having a value less than appears. The count may be divided by the total number of cards remaining to be dealt to give the player an indication of how much the remaining deck favors the player with respect to the house. Other variations of card counting are well known in the art.
Manual shuffling tends to slow play down, so the gaming industry now employs numerous mechanical shufflers to speed up play and to more thoroughly shuffle the cards. The cards are typically shuffled several cards before the end of the deck(s), in an effort to hinder card counting, which may be particularly effective when only a few hands of cards remain (i.e., end game strategy). The ratio of the number of cards dealt to the total number of cards remaining in the deck(s) is commonly known as the penetration. The gaming industry is now introducing continuous shufflers in a further attempt to frustrate attempts at card counting. As the name implies, continuous shufflers mechanically shuffle the cards remaining to be dealt while one or more hands are being played.
While mechanical shufflers increase the speed of play and produce a more through shuffle over manual methods, there is still a need for improve in speed and/or thoroughness of the shuffle. In particular, mechanical shuffling methods are subject to incomplete shuffles due to the inherently mechanical nature of such devices. Additionally, mechanical shufflers are limited in the total number of decks they can manipulate.